Many contact centers originate outbound calls by making use of automated dialing equipment so that they may effectively dial multiple calls virtually simultaneously. Use of such equipment is made because to sequentially place outbound calls as agents become available results in an inefficient use of the agents' time. Firstly, an available agent may have to wait and sit idle while calls are being placed for other agents who have also become available. Secondly, an available agent may have to wait and sit idle until a call reaches a live party (live connect) because a large number of placed calls do not necessarily result in reaching a live party but instead, result in reaching a busy signal, answering machine/service, out-of-service indicator, or continue to ring without ever being connected. Therefore, an agent does not only have to wait for a call to be placed for him, but he also has to wait for a call to be placed for him that reaches a live party.
With that said, automated dialing equipment commonly used by contact centers to dial multiple virtually simultaneous calls is a predictive dialer. Generally speaking, a predictive dialer initiates multiple calls for an agent, not expecting all of the calls to reach a live party. Instead, the predictive dialer expects at least one of the calls to reach a live party so that this call can be connected with the agent. In turn, the predictive dialer filters out the remaining calls that do not reach live parties so that such calls are not forwarded to agents. As result of using a predictive dialer, agents' time is more effectively utilized handling calls that have reached live parties, with minimal idle time between handling such calls.
In many instances, a predictive dialer employs an algorithm (often referred to as a “pacing” algorithm) for determining when and how many outbound calls should be originated at any given time. Ideally, this algorithm cannot originate outbound calls too slowly so as to keep agents waiting idle for too long before being connected to a call. However, this algorithm also cannot originate outbound calls too quickly so as to cause no agents to be available when an outbound call is connected to a live party. Thus, the algorithm often employs various techniques and variables to determine the optimal pacing of outbound call origination and the number of calls to originate under the current circumstances.
One of the key variables used by many pacing algorithms in determining the number of outbound calls to originate is call pacing hit ratio. Call pacing hit ratio is the percentage of outbound calls that are expected to result in a live connect (e.g., a human picking up the phone), as opposed to some other outcome such as, for example, a busy signal, an answering service/machine answering the call, or no answer. Conventionally, a pacing algorithm determines/predicts the expected call pacing hit ratio for outbound calls to be placed for a given time by simply averaging the hit ratio over a number of past dials performed for some past period of time. Such a determination can work well if the contact center is dialing outbound calls for dialing records of the same type as the dialing records for the past dials used to determine the average hit ratio. However, in many instances, this is not the case. Instead, if the current dialing records to be dialed vary greatly from the dialing records for the past dials used to determine the average hit ratio, then the expected hit ratio can be inaccurate and this can lead to the predictive dialer ineffectively originating calls for agents. Thus, a need in the industry exists for predicting call pacing hit ratio more accurately than conventional methods. A more accurate call pacing hit ratio can lead to higher predictive dialer efficiency and performance over call pacing hit ratios determined using conventional methods. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure herein is presented.